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Video SEO

Video SEO

What is Video SEO?

Video SEO is just like regular SEO, but focused on getting your video index and ranked in search engines. If you apply the right video SEO techniques to the page hosting your video, it will rank well on Google search result pages. The video SEO discussed on this page, does not apply to YouTube videos, just those embedded on a web page.
Here are some important tips that could get your video ranking well in search engines.

1. Accompany your Video with a Transcript

A video transcript is potentially a very powerful tool for attracting search engines to your video. The text describes the content of your video, giving the search engine all the information it needs, to know what your video is about.
You get a second bite of the ranking cherry, in that the transcript can also make the page itself rank quite highly in universal search as well as in video search result.

2. Use an engaging thumbnail image

Think of your video thumbnail image as a shop window. If you have an attractive and engaging thumbnail image, you can expect up to 40% more clicks than if you have no thumbnail image at all. A poor thumbnail image will not help either. Most people respond positively to a thumbnail with a human face.
If you are not able to work a face into your video, have a bold attractive image of the subject matter of your video. A good example is to have a picture of a delicious cake as your thumbnail, if your video is about baking a cake. You should consider shooting a few photos during your video shoot, just for your thumbnails. You can find out how to embed a thumbnail into your video on this page.

The image below shows how to get your video thumbnails right, the second section shows missed opportunities for Hope Spring birthday video ecards, which ranks very well in Google universal search, but lacks a thumbnail.

A video with thumbnail V without thumbnails

A video with thumbnail V without thumbnails

3. Video Title and Description are Crucial

The title and description you give your video, play a crucial part in how well it ranks. You should take a lot of time, and put a great deal of thought into the title and description of your video. It goes without saying that the title should be relevant, it should contain keywords that are related to the contents. You should make full use of the maximum characters allowed for a video title, but be careful not to stuff the title with irrelevant keywords.
In the description, use some of the keywords used in the title, to provide a relevant, accurate description that would help people searching for video like yours to find it. Do some keywords research, before writing your video title. Use high volume keywords, so that more people will find your video.

4. Optimise Page for Video Keywords and Ensure Relevance

You select a great title and a wonderful description for your video. Continue with this great title and description on the page the video is embedded in. Be consistent, so that the search engine will be sure what you video and the page it’s on is about. You should NOT for example embed a video called 101 things you don’t know about cats on a page called charity birthday ecards.

5. One Video on Per Page

To get the most out of your Video SEO efforts, you should embed one video on one page. There are several reasons why a video to one page works best. The first reason is that you can actually optimise that page to focus on the keywords you are targeting. Continuing with the earlier example of a video ecard, if you are trying to rank a video for 50th birthday video ecard, having that video on a page that included a video on how to make your own top bar beehive and another one about removing stains from your apron will not be helpful. Google tends to index the first video, on a page with multiple videos.

6. Don’t hide your video under a bushel

For a video to rank well, it should not be slapped on a page as if I were an afterthought. The ideal place to place a video you want to rank well is right on top of a page, with a small intro text before the video. If your video is buried at the bottom of a page, after hundreds of words and images, it’s chances of ranking well diminishes.

7. Duplicate contents apply to Video SEO

You should avoid embedding the same video on multiple pages on your website. Having multiple pages with the same content is called duplicate contents in regular SEO, the same applies to Video SEO.

8. Encourage others to link to and share your Video

Just like you will do for regular SEO, encourage people to share and link to your video. Text linking with the right anchor text, will help the page your Video is embedded on to rank higher and get more traffic. Encouraging people to share your video will get you more views and may even help your video rank higher.

Conclusion

You can generate more traffic to your site with your videos. Basic video SEO, which does not take up much of your time, could potentially get a page with video to generate much more traffic for you.  Hopefully one or two of the tips will help you get better ranking and more traffic.